


A Doctor of People

by ZygomaticBliss



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, BAMF Rose Tyler, F/M, FTM John, M/M, References to Abuse, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, The Doctor is a Bit Not Good, The Doctor ships it, timey-wimey nonsense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-14 22:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10545202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZygomaticBliss/pseuds/ZygomaticBliss
Summary: John keeps meeting this strange man, who speaks in riddles and only shows up when tragedy strikes. John doesn't believe in fate, but the jury's still out about this Doctor guy...Sherlock is used to mysteries - relishes in them, even. But when faced with a man who is both surrounded by mysteries and is one himself, how is a detective to cope? No, Sherlock may scoff at fate, but there's something about John Watson...





	1. Welcome to London

**Author's Note:**

> What's this? A Wholock crossover? How original! I am truly a beacon of creativity...  
> In all honesty, I have missed both Johnlo- I mean, Sherlock and the Tenth Doctor, so why not get the best of both worlds?  
> We'll be skipping around the timelines for everybody, but while you just will have to guess for the Doctor, John and Sherlock's jumps will be spelled out. Also, for those who want to know, I'll be keeping as much of S3 and S4 as doesn't piss me off or get in the way of the story, but even what I keep will be in a different context. If that's not your thing, no harm, no foul.

**June 21, 1996**

Looking back, John didn't really remember The Slap. The event itself was seared into his brain, probably forever - his head hitting the door frame behind him, his mouth burning with the pain of biting down on his tongue and the bitter copper of his blood, his eyes automatically filling with tears, the tidal wave of gratitude he could no longer see his father's twisted, livid face, the icy prick of shame at his weakness, his vulnerability. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear his mother's desperation. Like she was still begging.

"No more, Eric, please!"

He put one foot in front of another, and knew he must have been beaten more, yelled at more, pleaded for more the night before. He had noticed his face in the reflection from the train window, in the way people refused to look at him or couldn't rip their eyes away. His face was mottled in shadows and swelling around his left temple, his eye nearly forced shut, his jaw sore from clenching down. The insides of his cheeks were bloody and painful beneath the gentle probing of his tongue. He hadn't yet dared to unclothe himself, but each new movement sent shivering sparks down his body and out through his limbs. He idly wondered whether anything was actually broken. He knew, too, that he had packed himself a bag. He tightened his hold on it as he continued to trudge his way along the street, felt its weight dragging him back into his body. Out of The Slap. He didn't know what he put in it, but he hoped he'd packed enough. He didn't know, either, that his mother had come into his room hours after he had been released, after she fulfilled what Eric Watson liked to think of as her wifely duties, and Johanna Watson didn't like to think of at all after all these years. He didn't know that she had pressed enough money for train fare in his hands and told him to go to London. He didn't know that she had held him close and whispered her love, her goodbyes, her blessings.

He didn't know, but he would, when Harry called. When, with tears in her voice and desperation in her heart, she would beg him to come to the funeral.

But now, he didn't remember, didn't know.

 _Suppression_ _,_ his mind supplies, and he wonders at the workings of his own brain. It feels alien to him, distant. Forever slipping out of his reach.  _Dissociation_ , it agrees.

He didn't know London well, which gave him a welcome, if not somewhat inadequate distraction. Picking his deliberate path to the Estates took concentration, and the greyscale spectacle of the city picked at the leftovers. Here, an elderly man sitting with his grandson, feeding pigeons; there, a child with a wild mop of dark curls, not five years younger than him, running alongside a ginger dog, his eyes wide with joy and something else John couldn't quite identify. Here, the scent of curry; there, a thick plume of cigarette smoke blown directly in his face. It was sensory overload in the best way, and John drank it all in.

Soon enough, though, he ended up outside his aunt's door. He stood, struck dumb by exhaustion and inertia, staring at the door for what could have been seconds or hours, nothing but a dull whirring in his ears.

"I would suggest knocking," came from behind him, and John whipped around at the unfamiliar voice. A man, probably twice his age, stood leaning against the wall behind him. Part of John screamed posh prick gone slumming - the brown pinstripe suit he wore was clearly custom tailored, and probably worth more than all of John's possessions combined, and the accent was crisp in the way most of the Estates' residents' weren't. But John hesitated at the label. There was something about the man's spiked hair, his beat-up Converse shoes, the comfortable posture as he leaned against what was essentially the wall of an unwashed alley. And there was definitely something about his eyes. They reminded John of how he felt in that moment, untamed and free, yet barely breathing under the weight of it all. Most of all, it was in the resigned sympathy that flashed through them once he saw the bruises, dulling and softening the wildness there...

"Are you from around here?" John asked, surprised when his voice came out hoarse. Had he screamed, or had his father tried to choke him after The Slap? He figured there was an fairly equal chance of either, or both. Either way, he noticed the flash of steel in the stranger's eyes, although his posture stayed loose, casual. Non-threatening.

"Do I look it?" the stranger joked.

"Not really," John replied, then added honestly. "You don't really look like you're from anywhere." That earned him a flash of a grin, and those eyes flashed with intrigue. John couldn't help but feel like he passed a test he hadn't known he was taking. The stranger tilted his head, considering.

"What's your name, then?"

"John." He didn't even stop to consider the wisdom of telling his name to a stranger, instead feeling gratitude that the man's expression didn't even flicker. "John Watson." The man's eyes stayed focused and intense, as if he were trying to see through John, but his tone stayed easy and conversational.

"Oh, I love a good John. I go by that name sometimes - John Smith. But mostly people just call me the Doctor."

"Then, I suppose it's nice to meet you, Doctor," John said, and the Doctor flashed him a smile.

"And you as well, John Watson. I must admit, though, I took you for a Tyler," he said, the question in his tone obvious.

"Nah, Aunt Jackie's my mum's sister," John answered. "What, are you dating her or something?" The question seemed to catch the Doctor completely off-guard, going by the amount of sputtering and panic in the man's eyes. John couldn't help but laugh at the number of no's that poured out his mouth, even though it hurt. "Well, how do you know her, then?"

"John, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," the Doctor responded, amusement glittering across his face. "Besides, it's a long story, and I think you could do with some ice on that eye of yours before it swells completely shut."

"Well, since you're a doctor and all..." John joked, despite his curiosity and the little warning bell in the back of head, ringing over the evasive non-answers.

"Indeed." The Doctor grinned, cocked his head, and seemed to come to a decision. "I'll see you soon, John Watson." It sounded deeper than a promise, truer than a vow. It sounded as though it had already happened, and John couldn't help but believe. There was comfort in it, one certainty in a world that suddenly held no status quos. John grasped onto it. He may not have a family anymore, may not have a future anymore, may not have the clothes on his back for much longer, but he would see the Doctor soon.

"Yes," he agreed, and watched him walk away. A pricking in his thumbs, a shiver down his spine, the vaguest shape of an idea, all set to the dull whirring in his head, the increasingly urgent drumming of fatigue and pain. "Doctor..." He turned and knocked on the door. After a few moments, a blonde pixie of a girl, no more than ten, opened the door. Stared up at him with wide grey eyes. "Hello, Rosie," John said. "Is your mother home?"

He didn't have to wait long. Not for her gasp of shock and horror, not for the blinding pain from her collision of her hug, and not for the hardest blow of all, her greeting, screamed in his ear. His eyes locked onto Rose Tyler and his mind stuck on the Doctor.

"Joan!"


	2. Blue Box Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John brings Harry back to London, sees the TARDIS for the first time, and encounters some (probably) accidental timey-wimey missteps. Oh, and a truncated version of John meeting Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I don't know ages of people. Like, at all. I am guessing. I am also guessing how joining the army for the express purpose of becoming a doctor works. We haven't gotten there, but when we do, that will be all guesswork.  
> Next up, this was all supposed to be Chapter 1, but I felt like cutting it off where I did because it felt right. So if this feels like it was written in conjunction with the first chapter, you're right.  
> Also, I don't have it tagged, because it's real roundabout, but there's a touch of suicidal thoughts this chapter. Also, the description of physical abuse and its aftermath step up in this chapter. So please proceed with caution, with self-care in mind. Also, since I have no personal experience with physical abuse or the like, if you do and you feel like I misrepresented it or in any way trivialized it, let me know. I am not above or opposed to making edits.  
> In any case, enjoy!

**January 1, 1998**

John sucked the frigid London air into his lungs the second he stepped off the train, hardly believing he missed the stink of poorly obscured poverty and greed so much. He imagined someone probably would have preferred the brisk snap of the rural air in his old village, but that person was no longer him. Now it just smelled empty, bleak to him. London was home now, for better or for worse. And he definitely was coming to believe it was for the better.

That wasn't to say going back to visit his father and Harry for Christmas had been a bad idea. Far from it, although not for the reasons Eric Watson had probably had in mind. The sermons John could tell had been stockpiled, tested for quality, and stored away to simmer over the year and a half John had been gone were carefully blocked out, the bigoted barbs and lamentable land mines artfully sidestepped, and the violence... Well. It didn't take more than a single attempt at another beating for Eric Watson to realize that he was overpowered. To recognize that any further efforts to beat the trans-ness out of John would end with him on his arse and his eldest child walking out the door and never returning. So no, coming home for Christmas may not have ended with John Watson's decision to go by Joan and use she/her pronouns like Eric wanted, but that did not make it a loss. At least from John's perspective.

It was good to see old friends from school, to let them know he was alive, to exchange numbers and give them his new address. It didn't even hurt much when he found out his girlfriend Lucy had hooked up with his best mate Bill Murray, especially once Bill offered to get him enough alcohol to drink it off. He knew the small town would never be home again, but it was good to say good-bye to it properly. And to his mother at her grave.

Idly scanning the crowd, John couldn't help but return to the reason he was most glad he'd gone home, good-byes and closure aside. He hadn't seen Harry since before The Slap, and he had been eager to lay eyes on her again. He wasn't particularly surprised that it took awhile - Harry had always been particularly good at being anywhere else when the bad things took over the Watson household. Besides that, he figured she was going to be angry that he had left without saying good-bye, or that he had refused to go to their mother's funeral. It didn't even occur to him to be worried.

He wasn't sure he'd ever forgive himself that bit of naivete. The utter disbelief that hit first, when his little had left her room on the third day, Christmas Eve, appearing to be less of a person and more a canvas for bruises and welts. Limping, wincing at every movement, stiffening at every noise, and slurring her words.

It was only the sound of her drunken sobs of terror that stopped him from killing his father outright. It was only the way she flinched from his touch that kept him from dragging her out of the house bodily, Christmas be damned. It was only her fear that kept them there until the New Year - not of her father, but of John. That was what hurt most, he thought. She was really afraid he would hate her for being gay. She really believed that, and John was ashamed. So they stayed, just long enough to figure out where to go from there. How to be siblings again.

John resisted to urge to take her hand at the thought that they might never truly succeed. But he didn't manage to fight off the need to look at her again out of the corner of his eye. She was pressed as close to his side as she could without touching him, trembling, and John knew the cold couldn't account for the full force of it. She'd always been on the shorter side, they both did, but John didn't think he could remember her ever looking smaller. He could feel his mind fighting to process the entirety of the past week, but he kept a tight leash on it.  _Harry is gay,_ it whispered treacherously.  _Harry is gay and you are trans and you're both screwed. There's no coming back from this_.

"Where are they?" Harry asked. John snuffed down the fear and summoned up one of his patented winning smiles.

"Oh, Aunt Jackie could be late to her own funeral," he joked. "Rosie will have her here soon, though. You won't believe how much she's grown up. Soon, it'll be impossible to distinguish which one of them is the actual adult." Harry nodded, but didn't look comfortable, so John took a leap. He pulled her in gently with an arm around her back, rubbed a hand against her far arm. He flashed back to when they were smaller, waiting on the steps in front of the school for their father to remember that he had to go get them. It had practically been a daily occurrence. One time, they waited so long, the principal had offered to take them home. Their father had been furious that they had taken him up on it, despite the fact that they had been waiting over six hours without food.

Harry must have remembered those afternoons, since it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to relax against him.

The memory had the opposite effect on John, though. Seized with impatience and unable to express it without upsetting Harry, he returned his gaze to the crowd, eyes darting from face to face, looking for little blondes and listening for loud female voices. In time, though, his eyes slowed and caught on the blue wooden box that sat against a far wall. It looked not unlike a telephone booth, except made entirely of wood, no windows. John thought he saw the word "police" on it, too. He frowned slightly, wondering why it was there; it hadn't been there when he'd left last week.

His frown deepened when the door opened with a squeak he could hear even across the busy platform, and a man stepped out. John couldn't get a good look at him through the crowd, cursing his short stature yet again, but he could tell he was a prat. He didn't know how he knew, but he definitely knew. Maybe it was his deliberate artfully coiffed curls, maybe it was the creeper coat with the red buttonhole that John couldn't tear his eyes from, maybe it was the way he seemed to bounce on his toes without actually doing so... John didn't know what it was, but he trusted his instinct.

The man turned to say something over his shoulder, and John's stomach dropped, even as it tried to rise into his throat. Another man stepped out of the blue box, and John felt his face heat. There was only one thing the two of them could have been doing in there, right?  _Oh, God..._

And then John saw his face. The Doctor. The Doctor had been in the blue box with the red buttonhole prat. John's mind raced, trying to process this new info. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Doctor since the day he first arrived in London. Neither his Aunt Jackie nor Rosie seemed to know anything about him, although they had been a bit distracted by all the other news he carried in with him to really pay attention. In fact, John had nearly forgotten about him, just popping up now and again, the promise that had proven empty after all. He shouldn't have been surprised, and yet...

"John! Harry!" Harry jumped against him, wincing, but twelve-year-old Rosie didn't seem to notice or care. She ran, laughing across the station, her mother in close pursuit, although far less amused. John tore his eyes away from the Doctor to give his favorite (and, to be fair, only) cousin his full attention. He pulled just far enough away from Harry to swing Rosie into a giant hug, pulled into laughter with her.

"Rosie, love, wait for Mummy," his Aunt Jackie huffed, finally catching up. "Lord knows you were born to run, but not around here."

"Yes, Mum," Rose answered obediently, but John saw the glint in her eye and smiled at her. He turned to Harry, who seemed frozen and distant, and he laid a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to come to herself, and turned to face Rose.

"Hello, Rose. You've grown up, haven't you?" Rose turned to her younger cousin, and John saw the moment when she decided the only good response for that was a hug.

Hugging his Aunt Jackie, he scanned over his shoulder, looking for the Doctor or the prat he was with, but they were both gone. He wondered if he was going crazy, seeing men no one else sees, and thinking a poor kid like him could ever be a doctor. For a chance to meet the Doctor again, though - to see those eyes again, to feel that kinship again, and perchance to get some goddamn answers - he figured it was worth a shot. And hell, maybe it was worth being a little bit crazy.

* * *

**January 29, 2010**

John was going a lot crazy. From the moment he first laid eyes on the city, he didn't know that London could chafe this much, but the desert changed him. He was utterly unapologetic about that, at least to himself, when no one else was watching. Which, to be fair, was all but the single hour a week he spent with his therapist. He'd almost forgot that he'd known people in the city once, that he'd had friends here. Or at least, acquaintances like Mike Stamford.

He'd forgotten how awful the man was at small talk, how he'd lapse into awkward silences at the slightest hint that he'd offended anyone. John let him, figuring that if he could withstand the pain of losing family and taking a bullet to the shoulder and the certainty that you were losing your mind, he could withstand a little awkwardness. God knew he didn't exactly have a ton of other options.

Except that mentioning that to Mike seemed to open up an option, or at least the possibility of one. John had no real desire to share a flat with anyone, to figure out how to deal with a person in the damp suppression of the city versus the desperation that dried up with everything else in the desert. He didn't want to have to explain his limp and his nightmares to some anti-social idiot, didn't want to have to make the decision of whether or not he'd reveal his biological sex, didn't want anyone around to witness his descent into madness.

 He didn't want anyone to depend on him, for rent money or for anything. The gun in his bedside table sang a song of escape each night, and it was quite the earworm.

But it had been ages since he had really talked to someone, and he ached with the reality of that. So he went to St. Bart's.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" And yeah, John was definitely going crazy. Definitely, absolutely, 100%. Because there was no way the man in front of him was the same man who was with the Doctor in the blue box. There was no coat, no red buttonhole, but the face was the same. John tended to remember faces for a long time, and that was the prat's. It was just impossible; for one thing, the man looked nearly ten years younger, which should have been impossible. But if John was one thing, it was stubborn in the face of the impossible. He played along, and may have just gotten a flat and a flatmate out of the deal.

That is, if the whole thing wasn't a fever dream. He still wasn't quite sure.

Either way, his life just got a whole lot more interesting. Finally, something to put on that stupid blog that won't get Ella on a tangent about his anger issues. Although John figured he'd leave out the bits that made him sound like a lunatic. Crazy or not, things just got interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Sherlock's first day in London, and his introduction to John in Bart's (because I do actually love writing it, despite what this chapter might suggest).  
> Later: Rose's POV, the Doctor's POV (eventually), some more timey-wimey nonsense, and Jack Harkness giving literally everyone but the Doctor the vapors  
> If you enjoyed this chapter or this fic so far, kudos and bookmarks are loved and cherished in my heart, and if you wanna ask me a question, make a suggestion, or a (CONSTRUCTIVE) critique, I hoard comments like Smaug hoards gold.  
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> More chapters will be incoming, just as soon as I have figured them out.  
> If you liked this, check out my pit of desperation on tumblr dot hell. The url is jarvelus.  
> Kudos, comments, and subscriptions all appreciated!


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